DO INTRINSIC AND EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION RELATE TO ... · personal choice and true self (intrinsic...

Academy of Entrepreneurship Journal Volume 25, Special Issue 2, 2019

Entrepreneur Leadership and Organization 1 1528-2686-25-S2-288

DO INTRINSIC AND EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION

RELATE TO ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTION

DIFFERENTLY? A SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY

PERSPECTIVE

Ibrahim Al-Jubari, Management and Science University (MSU)

Aissa Mosbah, Management and Science University (MSU)

Zunirah Talib, Management and Science University (MSU)

ABSTRACT

The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between motivational

factors of self-determination theory (SDT) and entrepreneurial intention through the mediation

role of its determinants from the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). Specifically, it aimed at

understanding whether different types of motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic) influence

entrepreneurial intention differently. Based on a sample of students from one public and three

private universities in Malaysia (N=414), a structural model was tested. Results revealed that

72% of the variance on entrepreneurial intention was explained by the integrated model. All the

three TPB proximal determinants played a mediating role in the relationship between intrinsic

and extrinsic motivation and entrepreneurial intention. While both motivational factors

significantly predicted entrepreneurial intention, extrinsic motivation exerted stronger effect

than intrinsic. This study supports the theoretical integration of Self-Determination Theory

(SDT) and theory of planned behaviour in entrepreneurship research.

Keywords: Intrinsic & Extrinsic Motivation, Self-Determination Theory, Theory of Planned

Behaviour, Entrepreneurial Intention.

INTRODUCTION

Entrepreneurship plays a major role in enhancing economic growth and job creation Du,

& O’Connor, 2018; Praag & Versloot, 2007). It has become of great interest for policy-makers to

promote and support entrepreneurship for potential benefits of individuals and communities as

well (Obschonka et al., 2018). The engagement of individuals in entrepreneurial activities seems

to be a consequence of entrepreneurial intention as it is considered an immediate best

determinant of voluntarily behaviours and a important step in the process (Bird & Jelinek, 1988;

Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; Gelderen et al., 2008; Krueger et al., 2000). In fact, intention is one of

the key elements that precedes human actions that require decisional processes and remains

crucial in the case of business engagement. What spurs people to engage in entrepreneurial

activities becomes dominant topic of research in entrepreneurship (Fuller et al., 2018) and the

cognitive intention-based models such as theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) have been

widely utilized (Kautonen et al., 2015; Schmutzler et al., 2018).

Theory of planned behaviour (TPB) highlights the importance of three factors as

predictors of entrepreneurial intention namely: attitude, subjective norms and perceived



behavioural control. These factors are argued to be the proximal determinants of intention

(Ajzen, 2011). Although TPB has shown great applicability and validity in many research

settings, it has some constrains that may limit its scope (Hagger & Chatzisarantis, 2009) such as

its inability to indicate why people would be involved in intentional behaviour: are they acting

out of volition and true self or out of compulsion and sense of obligation (Armitage & Conner,

2001). Therefore, self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2017; Ryan & Deci, 2000) could

overcome such shortcoming of TBP by offering explanation to its origins (Andersen et al.,

2000). That is, SDT may improve the predictability of this intention-based model by evaluating

the motivational reasons why people have intended to pursue such activity (Luqman et al., 2018).

In entrepreneurship setting, people would engage in entrepreneurial activities for various

reasons such as being passionate, sense of independence, financial reasons or avoiding

unemployment or underemployment etc. These motivational reasons are either intrinsic or

extrinsic. Both types of motivation are much relevant in entrepreneurship as people would not

always start their ventures because of intrinsic reason but because of extrinsic reason as well.

Further, those motivational reasons may have varying degrees of influence on entrepreneurial

intention. However, there exists only limited research that examines how motivation, from SDT

view, shapes entrepreneurial intention (Al-Jubari et al., 2018), despite that SDT and TPB are

complementary and have been utilized in other research contexts such as health, exercise and

physical activity, social networks etc (Brooks et al., 2017; Hagger & Chatzisarantis, 2009;

Hagger et al., 2006; Jacobs et al., 2011; Luqman et al., 2018; Sicilia et al., 2015).

Consequently, the current study aims at integrating self-determination theory and theory

of planned behaviour to better understand how different types of motivation may influence

entrepreneurial intention differently. Particularly, it aims at testing the indirect effect of intrinsic

and extrinsic motivation on entrepreneurial intention through the mediating role of perceived

behavioural control, subjective norms and attitude. This is because there is a need for better

understanding of this topic among students (Othman & Mansor, 2012) who tend to show

different inclinations towards entrepreneurship during and after their graduation. Students may

also differ in their interest for entrepreneurship compared to non-students.

This paper is organized as follows: a review of entrepreneurship research in Malaysia.

The theoretical background of the underpinning theories, framework and hypotheses are

presented next. It is followed by a discussion on the target sample, measurement and methods.

Details on the analytical procedures, study results and discussion are then presented in

subsequence sections.

LITARATURE REVIEW

Research on Entrepreneurship intention in Malaysia

Research on entrepreneurship intention in Malaysia seems to have gained momentum in

the last decade. Many studies have been conducted to assess intentional propensities of

individuals to become self-employed using different theoretical foundations and building on

theories like the theory of planned behaviour (Muhammad et al., 2015), the entrepreneurial event

model and the entrepreneurial potential model (Ayob, 2013), and the personality traits (Zain et

al., 2010) among others. One strength associated with research on student entrepreneurship in

Malaysia is the investigation of this aspect within both public and private universities, and across

different academic programs; not only business students or students taking entrepreneurship

subject. The list includes business and economic students (Ayob, 2013) engineering students



(Abbas, 2015), Information and Technology (Haris et al., 2013). Gender differences were also

assessed (Ghazali et al., 2012).

While useful conclusions were drawn based on research evidence, the overall findings

did not differ much than evidence and often granted support to the theoretical foundations in use.

The proximal determinants of TPB have usually had established effects on intention.

Interestingly, Chen et al. (2013) have not found effect of satisfaction and learning efficacy of the

curriculum design and teaching with students’ entrepreneurial intentions; implying that students

do not see entrepreneurship course as suitable entrepreneurial pursuit but they learn it so to be

able to apply it in their future jobs. More research is needed to better understand this

phenomenon. The current study is just an attempt on this matter.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Theory of Planned Behaviour

According to the theory of planned behaviour, human behaviours, voluntarily in

particular, are determined by intention and that intention play a mediation role in the relationship

between a behaviour and attitude, subjective norms and control (Ajzen, 1991). These cognitive

antecedents refer to: A) attitude which is about personal favourable or unfavourable evaluation

of desired behaviour. B) Subjective norms that refer to the agreement or disagreement of social

reference groups such as family and friends about individual’s engagement in the behaviour. C)

Perceived behavioural control related to the personal perception of whether the activity is easy or

difficult to engage in (Liñán & Chen, 2009).

Entrepreneurial intention studies have mostly adopted either theory of planned behaviour

(Ajzen, 1991) or entrepreneurial event model (Shapero & Sokol, 1982). They overlap with each

other to great extent (Kautonen et al., 2015), where attitude and perceived behavioural control of

TPB correspond to desirability and feasibility of entrepreneurial event model. Both have been

compared and it was found that they are similar in their predictive power (Krueger, Reilly, &

Carsrud, 2000). However, this study use TPB as one of the underpinning theories due to its

consistency in understanding and predicting entrepreneurial intention in addition to is application

across disciplines (Armitage & Conner, 2001; Fayolle, Liñán, & Moriano, 2014; Liñán &

Fayolle, 2015).

Attitude towards entrepreneurship and perceived behavioural control have shown strong

and consistent effect on entrepreneurial intention in many studies. Subjective norms is usually

the weakest or non-significant predicter of entrepreneurial intention (e.g., Al-Jubari, Hassan, &

Hashim, 2017; Almobaireek & Manolova, 2012; Farooq et al., 2018; Liñán & Chen, 2009;

Alharbi et al., 2018). However, few other studies have not found support for the relationship

between attitude and entrepreneurial intention (Siu & Lo, 2013). Conversely, support was found

for the effect of subjective norms on intention (Iakovleva et al., 2011; Kautonen et al., 2013; Siu

& Lo, 2011). Therefore, based on this discussion, the following hypotheses were formulated:

H1: Perceived behavioural control is positively associated entrepreneurial intention.

H2: Subjective norms are positively associated entrepreneurial intention.

H3: Attitude is positively associated entrepreneurial intention.

Self-Determination Theory



As a macro theory of human motivation, self-determination theory looks at motivation as

a core biological, cognitive and social regulation, involves the energy, direction and persistence

of activation and intention (Deci & Ryan, 2000). The extrinsic motivation occurs when people

act out of obligations, lack of choices or act because expect some kind of reward or avoid

punishment and guilt. On the other hand, people act intrinsically when they derive enjoyment

and interest from that particular activity and they act upon it out of volition (Deci & Ryan, 2000).

This is much applicable in entrepreneurship domain, where some people would want to start a

business merely to get some money or to avoid unemployment or they engage in such behaviour

because of the interest and enjoyment derived from it.

Self-determination theory posits that people are curious and vigorous in nature and they

always look for opportunities of self-development & growth. Even though not all activities,

including entrepreneurship, are interesting and enjoyable, which means not intrinsically

motivating, people may engage in such activities for intrinsic reasons. However, SDT, unlike

other theories of motivation, conceptualizes motivation along a continuum ranging from

amotivation or unwillingness, to passive compliance, to active personal commitment (Ryan &

Deci, 2000). These variations in the degrees of motivation reflect how such behaviours are

regulated and internalized by individuals. That is, SDT suggests that even though some

behaviours are extrinsically motivated, they can still be internalized and transformed to be more

autonomous through a developmental process of internalization and integration. Internalization

refers to people’s taking in value so that externally regulated behaviour is transformed to internal

regulation that become of value to them and does not require the presence of external

contingencies, so that it becomes a part of the self.

SDT and TPB: The Complementary Role

Researches integrating both is becoming increasingly noticeable in various domains and

research settings such as health, exercise, diet, eLearning, social networks, etc. According to

Hagger & Chatzisarantis (2009) “These approaches are deemed to provide complementary

explanations of the processes that underlie motivated behaviour”. The link between self-

determination theory and the beliefs system underpinning the proximal attitudinal factors of

intention perceived behavioural control, subjective norms and attitude, and motivation form the

basis of this integration. That is, TPB proposes that these beliefs results in a behavioural

engagement but it does not clearly indicate whether such behaviour is performed because of

personal choice and true self (intrinsic motivation) or because of obligation and control (extrinsic

motivation). Therefore, self-determination motivation operates at a distal predictor of

entrepreneurial intention whereas attitudinal factors as proximal predictors. As such, and on this

basis, the effect of SDT motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic will influence intention through its

proximal determinants (Luqman et al., 2018) (Figure 1).

For instance, in health behaviour meta-analysis, the proximal TPB determinants were

found to partially mediate the relationship between SDT motivational factors and entrepreneurial

intention (Hagger & Chatzisarantis, 2009). Similarly, in a physical activity and dietary

behaviours context, autonomous motivation indirectly influenced intention for both behaviours

through attitude and self-efficacy (Jacobs et al., 2011). Likewise, in a recent evidence in social

network site research, Luqman et al. (2018) found that TPB determinants of discontinuance

intention fully mediated motivational factors of SDT. Based on this background, the following

hypotheses are offered:



H4: Intrinsic motivation is positively associated with (a) perceived behavioural control, (b) subjective

norms, and (c) attitude towards entrepreneurship.

H5: Extrinsic motivation is positively associated with (a) perceived behavioural control, (b) subjective

norms, and (c) attitude towards entrepreneurship.

H6: The relationship between intrinsic motivation and entrepreneurial intention is mediated by (a)

perceived behavioural control, (b) subjective norms, and (c) attitude towards entrepreneurship.

H7: The relationship between extrinsic motivation and entrepreneurial intention is mediated by (a)

perceived behavioural control, (b) subjective norms, and (c) attitude towards entrepreneurship.

FIGURE 1

THE STUDY FRAMEWORK

METHODOLOGY

Participants

The convenience sample of this study (N=414) of undergraduates from three private

universities and one public university in the state of Selangor, Malaysia consisted of 56%

females and 44% males with an average age of 22.97 (SD1.13). Participants ethnicities were

75.4% Malay, 14.7% Chinese, 7.7% Indians and 2.2% others. They were enrolled in various

programs and most of them were final year students (75.8).

Measures

TPB Instruments: Entrepreneurial intention and TPB constructs were measured using

the entrepreneurial intention questionnaire (EIQ) (Liñán & Chen, 2009). A five-point Likert

scale was used ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree). Entrepreneurial intention

was measured by 6 items, followed by attitude 5 items, SN 3 items and PBC 6 items. The scale

has been validated by many studies and showed good reliability ranging from 0.77-0.94 (Liñán

& Chen, 2009). See the Table 1 below for summary.

SDT Instruments: To assess the intrinsic motivation and controlled extrinsic motivation

(extrinsic regulation) variables, we opted for a slight adaptation of the situational motivation



scale (SIMS) to suit the current study. A five-point Likert scale was used ranging from 1 (totally

disagree) to 5 (totally agree). Students were asked why they would want to be entrepreneur.

Intrinsic motivation was assessed by 4 items and extrinsic regulation (controlled extrinsic

motivation) was assessed by 4 items as well. The reliability was .86 and .73 respectively (Guay,

Vallerand, & Blanchard, 2000). See the Table 1 below for summary.

Table 1

SUMMARY OF MEASUREMENT

No Variable No of

items

Sample item Source

1 Entrepreneurial intention 6 “My professional goal is becoming an

entrepreneur”

(Liñán & Chen,

2009).

2 Attitudes towards

entrepreneurship

5 “Being an entrepreneur implies more advantages

than disadvantages to me”

3 Subjective norms 3 “My immediate family would approve my

decision to start a business”

4 Perceived behavioural

control

6 “I can control the creation process of a new firm”

5 Intrinsic motivation 4 “Because I think I will feel good when I become

an entrepreneur”

(Guay et al.,

2000)

6 Extrinsic regulation 4 “Because I don’t have any choice”

RESULTS

Table 2 shows descriptive statistics and inter-constructs correlations. Mean values are

moderately high in a scale of 5 and all constructs showed accepted reliabilities ranging from

(0.84-0.94). The correlations analysis shows strong associations among the study constructs

ranging from 0.515 (intrinsic motivation and extrinsic regulation) to 0.761 for perceived

behaviour al control and entrepreneurial intention.

Table 2

MEANS, STANDARD DEVIATIONS, ALPHA AND CORRELATIONS

Variables Mean (SD) 1 2 3 4 5 6

1. Entrepreneurial

intention

3.95 (0.80) (0.94)

2. Attitudes towards

entrepreneurship

4.07 (0.70) 0.622**

(0.89)

3. Subjective norms 3.91 (0.82) 0.655**

0.612**

(0.84)

4. Perceived behaviour al

control

3.84 (0.77) 0.761**

0.646**

0.640**

(0.94)

5. Intrinsic motivation 3.88 (0.68) 0.669**

0.579**

0.581**

0.587**

(0.87)

6. Extrinsic regulation 3.81 (0.93) 0.680**

0.571**

0.618**

0.732**

0.515**

(0.91)

** P <0.01; Diagonals are Cronbach alpha coefficients

Measurement Model

Structural equation modelling using Amos (version 22) was utilized to test both

measurement and full structural model. The measurement model of this study contains 28

unobserved variables (items) reflecting six unobserved latent variables. As depicted in Figure 2,

the model has achieved an acceptable fit to the dada: χ² =1091.854, df=335, CFI=0.925,



RMSEA=0.074. All loadings were above 0.70 and significant at P<0.001. Consequently, after

fitting the measurement model and testing the convergent and discriminant validity, the full

structural model was then evaluated to test the hypothesized relationships.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Convergent validity is assessed using two approaches: the reliability scores (Cronbach

alpha and composite reliability) and the average variance extracted (AVE). constructs

demonstrate convergent validity when the AVE value is greater than 0.5 (Fornell & Larcker,

1981) and CR and alpha higher than 0.70 (Hair, Black, Babin, & Anderson, 2010). In the current

study and as shown in Table 3, all constructs exceeded these threshold values and thus they

convergent validity is established. Discriminant validity can be assessed by comparing the square

root of AVE with the correlation of each constructs. Since the CFA result show that the square

root of AVE is greater than off diagonal correlations, then discriminant validity is demonstrated.

In addition, strong factor loadings of all items are indicative of discriminant validity. Table 3

displays convergent and discriminant validity in the current study.

Table 3

RESULTS OF THE CONFIRMATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS

Constructs Items Standardized

Loading

Cronbach

Alpha

CR AVE

Entrepreneurial

intention

EI6 0.849

0.94 0.946 0.743

EI5 0.853

EI4 0.877

EI3 0.879

EI2 0.865

EI1 0.850

Perceived behaviour al

control

PBC6 0.850

0.94 0.941 0.725

PBC5 0.844

PBC4 0.880

PBC3 0.863

PBC2 0.867

PBC1 0.803

Attitudes towards

entrepreneurship

ATE5 0.822

0.89 0.898 0.639

ATE4 0.841

ATE3 0.769

ATE2 0.828

ATE1 0.731

Subjective norms SN3 0.827

0.84 0.855 0.665 SN2 0.907

SN1 0.699

Intrinsic motivation AIM4 0.786

0.87 0.871 0.629 AIM3 0.804

AIM2 0.822

AIM1 0.758

Extrinsic regulation CEM4 0.868

0.91 0.910 0.717 CEM3 0.820

CEM2 0.888

CEM1 0.808

P <0.001.



FIGURE 2

MEASUREMENT MODEL

The structural Model

A structural model was estimated modeling intrinsic motivation and extrinsic regulation

as predictors of the outcome variable, entrepreneurial intention, through the mediating roles of

attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behaviour al control. The structural model results

revealed an acceptable model fit: χ²=1163.620, df =340, CFI=0.919, TLI =0.910, RMSEA

=0.077. The covariance of intrinsic motivation & extrinsic regulation is significant (β =0.361, p

< 0.001). As presented in Table 4, the results reveal that hypotheses H1, H2 and H3 are fully

supported as TPB factors positively predict entrepreneurial intention. The path coefficients of

perceived behavioural control, subjective norms and attitude were all significant: (β = 0.55, p <

0.001), (β = 0.25, p < 0.001) and (β = 0.16, p < 0.001) respectively. Also, full support for H4 and

H5 was found as well, where intrinsic motivation and extrinsic regulation were hypothesized to

positively influence perceived behavioural control, subjective norms and attitude. Path

coefficients were all significant (H4a) (intrinsic motivation with perceived behavioural control (β

= 0.32, p<0.001), (H4b) intrinsic motivation with subjective norms (β=0.41, p<0.001) and lastly

(H4c) (β=0.44, p<0.001) for intrinsic motivation with attitude). In the same manner, all

coefficients of H5 were significant: (H5a) (extrinsic regulation with perceived behavioural



control (β=0.62, p<0.001), (H5b) extrinsic regulation with subjective norms (β=0.47, p<0.001)

and lastly (H5c) (β=0.41, p<0.001) for extrinsic regulation with attitude) (Figure 3).

FIGURE 3

THE STRUCTURAL MODEL

TABLE 4

STANDARDIZED ESTIMATES

Path Std

Estimates

Critical

Ratio

P-

Value

Findings

Perceived behavioural control → Intention 0.546 10.263 *** Supported

Subjective norms → Intention 0.254 5.295 *** Supported

Attitude → Intention 0.156 3.432 *** Supported

Intrinsic motivation → Perceived behavioural control 0.317 6.833 *** Supported

Intrinsic motivation → subjective norms 0.411 7.599 *** Supported

Intrinsic motivation → attitude 0.441 7.589 *** Supported

Extrinsic regulation → Perceived behavioural control 0.615 12.166 *** Supported

Extrinsic regulation → subjective norms 0.465 8.902 *** Supported

Extrinsic regulation → attitude 0.411 7.464 *** Supported

Further, to investigate whether TPB factors mediate the relationships between

entrepreneurial intention and intrinsic motivation and extrinsic regulations, a mediation analysis

was conducted using Mplus version 7 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2012). The bootstrapping

procedure with bias-corrected intervals procedure was used to test magnitude and significance of

the mediations effects (Shrout & Bolger, 2002). Mplus provides results for specific mediation

effects, unlike Amos which just test for total effect only.

Table 5 presents the mediation analysis results, where all the TPB factors play a

significant mediation role expect for one hypothesis. The indirect effects of intrinsic motivation

on entrepreneurial intention via perceived behavioural control (H6a), subjective norms (H6b)

and attitudes (H6c) were (β=0.173, p<0.001; β=0.104, p<0.001; β=0.069, p <0.066) respectively.

As such, attitude didn’t show to have a significant mediation role and thus hypothesis (H6c) is

rejected. Similarly, perceived behavioural control (β=0.336, p<0.001), subjective norms (β =

0.118, p<0.001) and attitudes (β=0.064, p<0.01) were all significant mediators in the relationship



between extrinsic regulation and entrepreneurial intention, which support H7a, H7b and H7c.

Overall, the model accounts for about 72% of variance in the entrepreneurial intention.

Table 5

Mediation Results

Bootstrapping

Path BC95%

Confidence interval

Estimates Z-Score P-Value Lower Upper

Sum of Indirect 0.346 6.646 0.000 0.244 0.448

IM → PBC → INT 0.173 4.124 0.000 0.091 0.255

IM → SNs → INT 0.104 3.338 0.001 0.043 0.166

IM → ATE → INT 0.069 1.835 0.066 -0.005 0.142

Sum of Indirect 0.518 12.322 0.000 0.436 0.601

EM → PBC → INT 0.336 7.208 0.000 0.245 0.427

EM → SNs → INT 0.118 3.512 0.000 0.052 0.184

EM → ATE → INT 0.064 2.055 0.040 0.003 0.125

DISCUSSION

Based on dual theoretical perspectives, an integrated research model was presented. The

model aimed at examining whether different types of motivation influence entrepreneurial

intention differently. Since people would like to engage in entrepreneurial activity for various

reasons; intrinsic or extrinsic, it was assumed that both would trigger entrepreneurial intention

positively. Further, we argued that the immediate antecedents of entrepreneurial intention

namely perceived behavioural al control, subjective norms and attitudes will act as mediators of

these motivational mechanisms. The integration of intentional (theory of planned behaviour) and

motivational (self-determination theory) models adds distinctiveness to the current study.

Motivation is a crucial factor in determining entrepreneurial intention (Fayolle et al.,

2014) and it may can come in any form but mainly from two places: internal (within the person)

or external reasons to the person (Benzing et al., 2009; Carsrud et al., 2009). That is, people

would have different motivational reasons to be engaged in any entrepreneurially activity. Either

people start business because of limited options they have and out of obligation for example to

avoid unemployment or to expect more income or because they have higher purpose and they

want to be entrepreneurs because they enjoy being entrepreneurs or they want to have more

autonomy and achievement.

The finding of the current study reveals that motivation plays a significant role in

students’ intentions to be entrepreneurs. Particularly, both types of motivation, intrinsic

motivation and extrinsic regulation (motivation) have significant effects on entrepreneurial

intention through its proximal predictors; perceived behavioural al control, subjective norms and

attitudes. Extrinsic regulation has stronger effect than intrinsic motivation on these predictors.

This lends to the self-determination theory, which differentiates the types of motivation and not

the amount (Ryan & Deci, 2000), both types of motivation could lead to entrepreneurial intention

and eventually actual enactment of such intentions (Al-Jubari et al., 2018).

Our findings also support the applicability of theory of planned behaviour. Interestingly

in this study, the strongest predictor was perceived behavioural control (correspond to feasibility)

and not attitude (desirability) (weakest predictor here) as mostly reported (Al-Jubari et al., 2018;

Farooq et al., 2018; Liñán & Chen, 2009; Salman & Jamil, 2017). Further, the link between

subjective norms and entrepreneurial intention showed fairly moderate significance, which is line



with (Kautonen et al., 2013; Siu & Lo, 2011). It seems that social norm, in the Malaysian

context, plays a vital role on influencing individuals’ intentionality and subsequent behaviours.

For instance, subjective norms exerted moderate effect on people’s purchasing intentions (Salem

& Chaichi, 2018). However, it has shown weak or no significance in many entrepreneurship

studies (Almobaireek & Manolova, 2012; Krueger et al., 2000). This is to say that social

influence is important in deciding to be an entrepreneur and students may experience conformity

pressure to with social values and norms. Further, though attitude has shown consistent strong

effect on previous studies (e.g., Al-Jubari et al., 2018; Almobaireek & Manolova, 2012; Lechuga

et al., 2018; Liñán & Chen, 2009). It showed the weakest effect among all the three

entrepreneurial intention proximal predictors. This could indicate that as long as students

perceive themselves have control on the creation of business venture and approval from social

groups, their perception towards entrepreneurship (positive or negative) may not matter a lot.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

Though our study gives support to the integration of self-determination theory and theory

of planned behaviour, but it is subject to some limitations. First, our study is cross-sectional in

nature, which make it difficult to claim causality. A different design such as longitudinal would

be more appropriate to find out whether the intention will be translated in action. Future research

utilizing such design will be impactful. Second, the study has been conducted in one locality in

Malaysia and claiming generalizability of finding to the entire university students in the country

would be exaggerating. Probably future research should consider involving students from

different parts of the country or better from the region to see if such results hold. Finally, our

study has incorporated two classifications of motivation based on self-determination theory,

which are intrinsic and extrinsic. However, motivation, according to this theory, is

conceptualized a long a continuum of different types of motivations from the lack of motivation

(amotivation) through least determined motivation (intrinsic regulation) to the most self-

determined intrinsic motivation. Therefore, future research examining all these types of

motivation on the motivational continuum will provide more information on motivational

reasons. This of a particular interest to be explored as internalization and regulation of

motivation is one of the core propositions of self-determination theory, which is most relevant in

entrepreneurship research. People may start a business out of obligation and lack of choices, but

then later in the process they start realizing the value of what they do and thus internalizing the

motivational reasons from the extrinsic (controlled motivation) to the probably the intrinsic

(autonomous motivation).

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

As a conclusion, this study set out to examine how different types of motivation related to

entrepreneurial intention among university students in Malaysia. For this purpose, self-

determination theory of motivation was integrated with the intention theory of planned

behaviour. This findings give support to this theoretical integration (Chan et al., 2013; Hagger &

Chatzisarantis, 2009) to predict intention to be entrepreneurs (Al-Jubari et al., 2018). It has been

found that extrinsic type of motivation exerts more effect on entrepreneurial intention via its

proximal antecedents perceived behavioural control, subjective norms and attitude.



This study highlights few practical recommendations: policy-makers and educators who

are involved in promoting entrepreneurial behaviours among students may focus on enhancing

students’ intrinsic motivation to be entrepreneurs. This because intrinsically motivated

individuals tend to be more creative and persistent, and these attributes are highly related to

entrepreneurship. This may lead to high probability of succeeding. Further, attitude in this study

seems not to be a strong predictor of intention. Therefore, again educators and policy-makers

should provide more awareness programs and incentives to make entrepreneurship looks

attractive and advantageous to the students. The more the value of entrepreneurial activity is

valued, the more likely we can see enterprising individuals in the society.

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